New York County Supreme Court Justice Harold B. Beeler has allowed NY
Court of Appeals Chief Judge Judith Kaye's dissent in the 1991 case of
Alison D. v. Virginia M. To guide his steps in ruling that a woman
should have a hearing to attempt to establish that she is a “de facto
parent” of the child born to her former same-sex domestic partner, who
was also her New York City registered domestic partner and her Vermont
civil union partner. Debra H. v. Janice R., No. 106569/080.

Professor Leonard's discussion of the case can be found at his blog, Leonard Link, here.

In a move that could change the course of protection of women asylum
seekers across the country, Attorney General Michael Mukasey certified
the case of Guatemalan asylum seeker, Matter of R-A- , to himself,
overruling the decisions of two prior Attorneys General, Janet Reno and
John Ashcroft.

The case involves the claim for asylum of
Rodi Alvarado, who fled Guatemala after suffering more than a decade of
brutal domestic violence in a situation where neither the police nor
the courts responded to her pleas for protection.

According
to Professor Karen Musalo, Ms. Alvarado’s attorney and director of the
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at U.C. Hastings, the case has
been on hold since 2001. “Though we are glad to see some movement in
the case, I am worried that that the current Attorney General is less
sympathetic than his predecessors to the protection of women asylum
seekers who flee brutal forms of persecution in countries where their
governments will not protect them.”

Musalo explained that
domestic violence is recognized as a legitimate basis for refugee
protection by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as
well as by countries around the world – including Canada, the United
Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand; however its acceptance in the U.S.
has been controversial.

Matter of R-A- has a convoluted
legal history. In 1996 Ms. Alvarado was granted asylum by an
immigration judge in San Francisco. In 1999 the Board of Immigration
Appeals (BIA), the highest immigration tribunal in the country,
reversed her grant of asylum and ordered her back to Guatemala. This
decision mobilized thousands of women’s rights advocates, who
successfully persuaded then Attorney General Reno to intervene. In
response, A.G. Reno vacated the BIA’s decision in January 2001, and
ordered the BIA to reconsider the case once regulations the Justice
Department had proposed in 2000 were finalized.

In 2004
Attorney General John Ashcroft took jurisdiction over the case, and
ordered lawyers for Ms. Alvarado and the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) to brief the case. Though the DHS itself recommended
that Ms. Alvarado be granted asylum, without explanation, Attorney
General Ashcroft did not rule on the case but sent it back to the BIA
with the same order that his predecessor Janet Reno had – that the BIA
reconsider the case once the regulations proposed in 2000 were issued
as final. To this date, the proposed regulations have not been issued
in final form.

In a surprise move on September 25, Attorney
General Mukasey certified Matter of R-A- to himself, and issued a
decision ordering the BIA to reconsider it, removing the requirement
that the BIA await the issuance of proposed regulations. This means
that the BIA can immediately begin to consider this decision, as well
as many others that had been on hold waiting a BIA decision in Matter
of R-A-.

Professor Musalo expressed concern about the
Attorney General’s decision to eliminate the requirement that Matter of
R-A- be decided under the authority of the proposed – but not yet
finalized – regulations. “The proposed regulations were generally seen
as a positive legal development, which recognized claims such as Ms.
Alvarado’s,” Musalo explained.

Polygamy is a "hot topic" in family law scholarship (as well as in the popular media). A few great looking articles with their SSRN abstracts:

"'They Ain't Whites; They're Mormons': An Illustrated History of Polygamy as Race Treason" MARTHA M. ERTMAN, University of Maryland Law School

Abstract: Legal doctrines banning polygamy grew out of nineteenth century Americans' view that Mormons betrayed the nation by engaging in conduct associated with people of color. This article reveals the racial underpinnings of polygamy law by examining cartoons and other antipolygamy rhetoric of the time to demonstrate Sir Henry Maine's famous observation that the move in progressive societies is "from status to contract." It frames antipolygamists' contentions as a visceral defense of racial and sexual status in the face of encroaching contractual thinking. Polygamy, they reasoned, was "natural" for people of color but so "unnatural" for whites as to produce a new, degenerate race, licentious and submissive to despotism. The article suggests that the tension between status and contract, together with anthropologist Edward Said's concept of Orientalism, bridge the seemingly separate issues of Mormon polygamy and racial inferiority. In particular, Orientalism explains how the nation deprived overwhelmingly white Mormons of citizenship rights such as voting on grounds of racial inferiority.

"Polygamists Out of the Closet: Statutory Prohibitions Against Polygamy are Unconstitutional Under the Free Exercise Clause as Currently Interpreted" KEITH SEALING, University of Louisville Brandeis School of LawAbstract: The Romer v. Evans colloquy between Justices Kennedy and Scalia over the applicability of the nineteenth century polygamy cases to the more current debate over gay rights and same-sex marriages was of more than academic interest to the estimated 25,000 to 50,000 Fundamentalist Mormon practitioners of polygamy, as well as the nearly 1,000 Christian polygamists, and Islamic and African practitioners of polygamy. The degree to which divergent religious practices will be accommodated is of increasing importance in a nation where the variety of religions is changing and expanding from the once overwhelmingly Protestant Christian colonial era. Part I of this Article first discusses at the Romer v. Evans colloquy. Part II briefly explores the history of the mainstream Mormon Church including its adoption and later repudiation of polygamy. Part II also examines non-Mormon polygamy. Part III considers the scriptural basis for polygamy. Part IV analyzes four nineteenth century cases that still apparently stand as anti-polygamy precedent. Part V explores modern Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence and legislation. Part VI argues that the Free Exercise Clause protects religiously motivated polygamy for two separate but interrelated reasons. First, because marriage is a fundamental right, the situation presents a hybrid claim of interference with a fundamental right as well as a Free Exercise claim. Second, under Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the prohibitions are not of general applicability but rather are aimed at a specific religious practice because they are born of antipathy to the underlying religion.

'Big Love?' The Recognition of Customary Marriages in South Africa
PENELOPE ANDREWS,
Valparaiso University School of Law

Abstract: This Comment contextualizes the issue of polygamous marriages within
the South African constitutional paradigm, one committed unequivocally
to the principle of equality. This Comment analyzes how South African
law, European in origin, had to incorporate the laws and institutions
of indigenous communities within the national legal framework, as part
of the overall transformative legal project underway in the country
since 1994. By focusing on the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act,
this Comment examines such incorporation, while questioning its effect
on the overall project of constitutionalism, human rights, and equality.

Responding to a recent incident in which children were found dead in their adoptive mother's home, the Washington Post's Marc Fisher argues for "transparency" of child welfare records. (last visited by MIF 10-05-08)